eer.

The invitation was general and every one who could possibly reach the
place in a day's journey came. The women wore for the most part calico
dresses, bright in colour and generous in volume, heavily starched and
absolutely devoid of fit. Their brown faces were heavily powdered,
producing in some of the darker ones a purplish tint, which was ghastly in
the light of the oil lamps. Some of the younger girls were comely despite
their crude toilets, with soft skins, ripe breasts, mild dark heifer-like
eyes, and pretty teeth showing in delighted grins. The men wore the cheap
ready-made suits which have done so much to make Americans look alike
everywhere, but they achieved a degree of originality by choosing brighter
colours than men generally wear, being especially fond of brilliant
electric blues and rich browns. Their broad but often handsome faces were
radiant with smiles, and their thick black hair was wetted and greased
into shiny order.

The dance started with difficulty, despite symptoms of eagerness on all
hands. Bashful youths stalled and crowded in the doorway like a log jam in
the river. Bashful girls, seated all around the room, nudged and tittered
and then became solemn and self-conscious. Each number was preceded by a
march, several times around the room, which was sedate and formal in the
extreme. The favourite dance was a fast, hopping waltz, in which the swain
seized his partner firmly in both hands under the arms and put her through
a vigorous test of wind and agility. The floor was rough and sanded, and
the rasping of feet almost drowned the music. There were long Virginia
reels, led with peremptory dash by a master of ceremonies, full of grace
and importance. Swarthy faces were bedewed with sweat and dark eyes glowed
with excitement, but there was never the slightest relaxation of the
formalism of the affair. For this dance in an earthen hovel on a plank
floor was the degenerate but lineal descendant of the splendid and formal
balls which the Dons had held in the old days, when New Spain belonged to
its proud and wealthy conquerors; it was the wistful and grotesque remnant
of a dying order.

Ramon had a vague realization of this fact as he watched the affair. It
stirred a sort of sentimental pity in him. But he threw off that feeling,
he had work to do. He entered into the spirit of the thing, dancing with
every woman on the floor. He took the men in groups to the back room and
treated them. He mi